Okay, I didn’t read the fine print well enough, I was thinking your were talking the THIRD stage wouldn’t deploy immediately. I think STREAMERS are okay to deploy from boosters at separation, simply BECAUSE they aren’t as effective as chutes. As I have said from experience, deploying chutes for boosters AT separation velocity is……not optimal. Some elastic in the shock cord won’t hurt either, as long as you have good wadding protecting the elastic from the ejection charges.
Also whereas I usually FOLD streamers up to the last few folds before ROLLING them for single stage rockets where I WANT the streamer to completely deploy immediately, this may be a case where a bit of rolling for that THIRD stage may allow the stage to decelerate before full streamer deployment, which may be good.
I LIKE the change to three C11-3 and 2 D12-0s on first stage. It DOES give you redundancy.
2 zero delay motors, probability is very high that BOTH are gonna work, but if only one works, it will still light off the second stage. It also simplifies your manifold, as you only need to duct the two D12-0s to the next stage, instead of original three.
how are you gonna handle the ejection charge from the midline C11?.
Your D12-0 dual manifold is directly in front of it, so not gonna be easy to attach a chute (not that you need one.)
options I can think of (in other words, strongly suspect there are more and possibly better ones than listed here.)
1. Assuming field rules allow, by far easiest solution is eject it, in which case I would go with C11-0, if you are gonna dump it, dump it early, drop the mass, and take the extra bit of acceleration as a bonus.
2. duct it out the back.
3. Plug it. This will however prevent you from flying it at a NAR (and maybe Tripoli…
@Steve Shannon ??) event. It also maaaaaay void your NAR insurance, as even though it may be the safest option by far, it is a violation of safety code
“2. MotorsI will use only certified, commercially made model rocket moto
rs, and will not tamper with these motors or use them for any purposes except those recommended by the manufacturer.”
i will trust your Open Rocket Sim that dropping to C11-3s helps you get off the pad better, seems like D12-3s would work better but does give you high first to second staging altitude, which I agree is not best, at least for first flight.
https://www.rocketreviews.com/compare-estes-d12-to-estes-c11.html
have you run any sims on what happens if one or more of cluster motors doesn’t light? If neither D12 lights, upper stages won’t light and you will have a three stage ballistic return. Not good, especially For the rocket, but assuming a heads up launch, big rocket coming down from low altitude should be easy to see and avoid. More worrisome is if insufficient motors light, i.e., enough thrust to get off the rod but not enough to be Stable, in which case you have a good chance of a significantly non-vertical staging event, resulting in a rapidly spinning three or four stage cruise missile and/or landshark.
@aerostadt here in post 7 says using putty to hold in igniters greatly improved his cluster success
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...-ignition-for-2-estes-ds.169194/#post-2198887